


break me and i'll keep coming back

by EmmyKitten



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Rejection, adrien spirals, adrien's self confidence is non-existent, i cannot write dialogue to save my life, implied eating disorder, ladybug is a dumbass, lord have mercy on my soul, mildly abusive gabriel agreste, no hurt/comfort for adrien in this house, poor baby has been hurt way too many times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyKitten/pseuds/EmmyKitten
Summary: Set between Glaciator and the Miraculous New York Special.Chat Noir was only trying to prove to her that he cared for her outside of his pining. He didn't expect to br left with another rejection from Ladybug weighing on his heart, and more pain than he knows what to do with. For once in his life, he let himself succumb.Trigger warning for slight mentions of eating disorders.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	break me and i'll keep coming back

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: yes, i know ladybug did accept the rose from chat in glaciator, but in the new york special he says that she didn't. so i'm going to go with that.

Chat Noir swung through his bedroom window and detransformed a second before his feet hit the ground, leaving a distraught Adrien Agreste standing in his place. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of camembert, tossing it to Plaag before going over to his bed and plopping down on it unceremoniously. Plaag opted not to say anything to the distraught boy, instead going up to a high shelf to silently enjoy the cheese and rest.

The memory of his most recent patrol with Ladybug was fresh in his mind. He’d brought a white rose along with him, one that he’d gone out to the gardens in the Agreste Mansion himself to pick. He remembered that she hadn’t accepted his red rose because it represented romantic love, which stung. 

He chuckled as he remembered that. Some would call him a fool for feeling that way, considering she turned him down all the time. But something about that day, about her saying so explicitly that she could never be with him - it sent a pang of pain straight to his heart. It was the hope that she might have secretly liked him that got him through his days before. It was that hope that pulled him out of his bed with a spring in his step, ready to take on the day. The hope that maybe, after everything with Hawkmoth was over, they could reveal their identities and she might finally deem it safe to confess to him.

But now, well, he’d found that the only way to keep himself from slipping was not to think about it. Not think about the red rose he gave her, or Ladybug’s broken voice when she explained that she couldn’t be with him. He drew a sort of comfort in the familiarity of their little routine - of him being flirtatious and her rejecting his advances (albeit playfully). Maybe…..maybe he needed to keep things the way they’ve always been with Ladybug because it felt like the ground was constantly shifting underneath him in his civilian life. She was his fresh air in the endless hurricane drowning him constantly.

He wasn’t sure of many things anymore. He was, however, sure of why he was giving her this white rose now. While he was probably being a little inconsiderate by continuing to flirt with her even though she had already told him she liked someone else, he did care for her deeply. And, if anything, he treasured any sort of relationship he could have with her, even if it was just friendship. He wanted her to know that. He wanted her to know that she’d always have his love in any form she wanted it, and that he would always be there for her. That’s the kind of love white roses represented: pure love.

But when he gave her the white rose, she looked at him almost exasperatedly and….was that a touch of empathy he saw? He must have imagined it.

“You know I can’t take this, Chaton.” she said, her eyes darting to the side, obviously trying not to meet his eyes or look at the rose he was holding out. 

“But why not? This one isn’t red - it’s white!” he said, still holding out the rose. She finally met his eyes, frowning. She held her hand out and gently grabbed the wrist that was holding the rose, pushing it down to his side. The space between them suddenly felt uncomfortably empty.

“I can’t, Chat. Even if it’s a different color, it’s a token of your affection, and I can’t accept it.” she explained, her voice slowly getting quieter and quieter. He couldn’t quite fathom why, though. 

“This is to symbolize my love for you, yeah. But not the romantic kind. I just….want to show you how much I care for you.” he said, holding the rose up again and looking at her pleadingly. He caught movement in his peripherals and, flickering his eyes downward, noticed that she was wringing her hands nervously. At this sight, the bearer of the miraculous of destruction felt his already growing anxiety spike upwards. Ladybug was never nervous. She was always sure of herself, of the right thing to do. She couldn’t be nervous now, could she? 

“Chat, do you know what white roses represent?” she tentatively asked, seeming to have to force her hands apart, although he could still see them shaking slightly. He put his arm down again and tilted his head to the side, much like his namesake cat. 

“Pure love.” he answered confidently.

“And that’s the thing, isn’t it? This is still a symbol of your love for me. Your love for me is romantic, so this…..means the same exact thing to me. I’m really sorry, Kitty, but I’m still declining.” Her voice quivered slightly on the word “sorry,” but she leveled him with a stern look. Chat’s ears drooped.

“M’lady,” he murmured, “why does this mean so much to you? Why can’t you just take the rose as a gift between friends?” Ladybug made a little frustrated sound, going back to wringing her hands anxiously and refusing to meet his eyes. He waited for a response. And waited.

And waited. 

Finally, he took the hand that wasn’t holding the rose and tentatively placed it on her shoulder. She flinched almost immediately, causing Chat to jerk his hand away. He looked at her worriedly. 

“Ladybug….?” he inquired softly. She looked at him, a small glint of madness in her eyes, shielded by pure anger. 

“ _Because it isn’t, Chat_.” she exclaimed exasperatedly. “It’s a gift from a guy that’s been pining after me ever since we met, and even though I’ve told him I like someone else, he still doesn’t stop. You’re doing this to try and win me over. I can’t take it, Chat.” Some of her anger seemed to dissipate, and she took a shaky breath. “I can’t reciprocate." she murmured. "I don’t love you the way you love me.” 

He felt his face start to slip, the facade of calmness starting to crack. But he needed to hold on. He needed to explain himself. He - he didn’t like it when Ladybug was mad at him. Whenever he talked to her on a good day, the kindness and confidence she radiated made him feel like a mere mortal in the presence of a goddess. When he angered her, he felt as if the wrath of the heavens themselves was beating down upon him. It pained him, more so than her words. 

“M’Lady I-” he started, but she cut him off, and with a start he realized there were unshed tears glistening in her eyes. 

“I love you, Chat, but I can never love you the way you love me. Please stop hurting yourself.” She turned away from him, without a word, hooked her yo-yo to a nearby building and swung away. He knew what she was doing, of course - going to her own patrol route instead of their joint patrol route so that there was no chance she would have to run into him again tonight.

He didn’t allow himself a moment to process what had just happened: he needed to finish his patrol first. He was about to go when he realized he was still holding the rose. He studied it for a second absentmindedly, before whispering _cataclysm_ under his breath. Plaag seemed to understand what he wanted and allowed him to use his power without powering it up, since it was only a tiny rose that he wanted to use it on. He watched the white rose turn black as coal in his hand before crumbling, and then watched with a small sense of satisfaction as the remains of the rose sifted through his fingers and collected on the ground below.

He then leaped over to a building in the other direction from the one Ladybug had gone toward in order to start his own patrol, determined not to think about what had just happened.

But now that he was in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, he realized just how quiet and lonely his room was. So quiet, that it was impossible to ignore his racing thoughts. 

_I can never love you the way you love me._

Ladybug’s words wouldn’t stop echoing in his head. And every time they did, he felt as if he was being shot. The pain radiated through his chest, and left him gasping both from his whirlwind emotions and the sheer pain he was in. 

Why couldn’t she try to understand? He _needed_ this. He _needed_ to hold onto routine, to _hope._ To stray from the routine was to admit to himself that he never stood a chance with her, that he was -

That he was never going to be enough for her. 

But he needed to stop, didn’t he? Or how could he claim to care about her? 

He needed to respect her wishes and _stop_. 

He needed to admit to himself that he was never going to be enough for anybody. 

For all of Adrien’s life, nothing he did was ever enough for anybody. One of his earliest memories was of his father chastising him for eating too much, at only 7 years old. He was primed to be a model since he could walk - the weight of the Agreste family name placed on his back no sooner than he learned to support his own weight. 

He was too young to understand the underlying message behind his words: _no one will care about you if you don’t control yourself_. All he knew was that his father got angry when he ate. 

So he stopped. 

His mother Emilie tried everything: hand-feeding him, cutting his food into fun shapes, or even trying to trick him into eating, but to no avail. He refused to eat. 

And then his father was angry again. 

“The public will think we’re not feeding him,” Gabriel had exclaimed, rubbing his temples.

Emilie calmed him down, of course (Gabriel was always far kinder with his wife around), but even at a young age, he could feel the quiet buzz of his anger across the room. That was when he realized that the only way to please his father was to be perfect. And that was what he aspired to be, even as his mother tried to make him realize that he didn’t need to be.

His mother did her best to keep his father from actually enforcing any of his unrealistic expectations. She always took him to the bakery near the mansion to get him the sweets that his father forbade him from having because of how fattening he was. She also bought him whatever clothes he wanted, and he fondly remembered how she would sneak him into her room in the middle of the night when Gabriel was asleep so they could have a fashion show with them (because, of course, Gabriel would never let anyone see Adrien being anything but the perfect, flawless child that Gabriel made sure everyone thought he was). 

She was his reprieve from the fearsome monster that was Gabriel. Whenever Gabriel tried to yell at him, his mother was always there to stop him. Whenever Gabriel insulted or punished his son, his mother was always there to scoop up Adrien in her soft arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay. She encouraged him to live his life the way he wanted, not how someone else imagined how his life should be. 

But even she had left him. He knew deep inside that it was Gabriel that probably made her leave, but all Adrien could think about since then was that _he wasn’t enough._ He wasn’t enough to make her stay. He wasn’t enough to make being in Gabriel’s company worth it. 

He didn’t hold any anger toward his mother. He had no reason to. If anything, he was angry at himself. He was angry at himself for not doing enough. He was angry at himself for not _being_ enough.

But then he met Ladybug. 

She made him feel things. She made him feel safe. He felt like no matter what happened, Ladybug would always be waiting at the end of the tunnel for him to whisk away all of his troubles in a cloud of ladybugs and sparkles. Ladybug would always fix everything. 

Just like his mother. 

But just like with his mother, he wasn’t enough for Ladybug either, was he? 

Ladybug cared about him, of course. But so had his mother. Ladybug was going to leave him too, wasn’t she? As soon as Hawkmoth was defeated, she would have no reason to see him again. She could cut all ties with him within a second, and he’d never see her again. Not unless she revealed her identity to him. 

But why would she do that? He was just some random Parisian boy that she’d been partnered up with. She cared about him, but it was just out of necessity, right? She didn’t really -

_I can never love you the way you love me._

Those damned words again. They were getting louder and louder. He could scarcely think anymore.

He slammed his hands to his ears, as if to block out the sound. To no avail, of course. There was nothing he could do against the voices in his head. 

_Never enough._

It wouldn’t _stop._ He wanted it to stop. He wanted everything to stop. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t _breathe._ Everything hurt.

He idly thought to himself that he deserved it.

He buried his face into his pillow and screamed in pure agony, a sound that would have made anyone’s blood run cold. He silently prayed that no one heard him. 

Why? Why wasn’t he enough? He could make her happy. Happier than that stupid boy that couldn’t see her for how amazing she was. He would shower her in love and affection. He’d make sure that she knew how much he loved her every single day. He’d bring her gifts and scoop her up in his arms and -

No. She didn’t want him. 

He needed to _stop._

He ignored his spiraling thoughts for a second and blinked to regain some sense of clarity, dragging himself out of bed. He went over to his desk and sat down. 

He pulled out a piece of paper and started writing. 

_Never enough never enough never enough never enough…._

His handwriting was a little shaky at first, but after a while his hand grew steady. The more he wrote, the softer the voices became. He filled up one page....two pages....three pages. Finally, his breathing grew steady. 

Silence. Pure, blissful silence.

He sighed in relief, staring up at the moon through the window. He allowed himself a small smile. 

He was going to stop.


End file.
